Author: Terrence Burton

DON’T LOOK BACK: THE STRONGHOLD OF THE PAST

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Remember Lot’s wife.

Luke 7:32

Your memory can be a blessing to you, but unfortunately, it may very well be a curse. Jesus made this statement above in reference to the miraculous deliverance executed to free Lot and his family from the wrath that befell Sodom and Gomorrah.

The Bible does not specify how long Lot and his family lived in Sodom. Nonetheless, they lived there long enough for Sodom to exert its influence on Lot’s wife. She was unable to refrain from looking back at the judgment as it befell the region.

Some details are excluded from the Bible regarding their exit, but I’m sure they heard the death cries of friends they’d acquired, people they did business with, and neighbors they’d left behind. The thought of what these people were suffering had to be painful. These thoughts had so gripped Lot’s wife’s mind that they outweighed the instruction to not look back.

But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

Gen. 19:26

What an example of looking in the wrong direction! God had given her and her family a new life…a new beginning. However, instead of this righteous woman focusing on her new life, she looked back at the one God was delivering her from and paid for it with her life.

What you give your attention to matters! Do not allow the pull of your past to so grip your mind that you look in the direction that it is calling you to focus on…no matter the logic or rationale. You must fight with everything in you to be single-minded, looking only in the direction of your freedom. Because this woman looked in the direction of the destruction, she suffered the same fate as those who were still in the place she was delivered from moments earlier.

This lesson perfectly illustrated how a person can be physically delivered from a situation, but their mind is not yet free.

Let this lesson serve as a reminder to you that your freedom is tied to the direction of your focus. Do not look in a direction where you do not want to go. Do not risk your future by focusing on your past.

Closing Point:

Notice the language in Genesis 19:26. Lot’s “wife looked back behind him.” This tells us the order in which they escaped to the city of Zoar. Lot was in the position of the rearguard. This means that Lot was standing between his family and the destruction of Sodom. The role of the rearguard is to protect the one who he’s assigned to so that if anything comes their way, he’s the one to get hit…not his protectee. But his wife chose to get out of position and away from his protection. In that moment, her husband was preventing her from seeing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. So she positioned herself to see behind him. She had to put her eyes on what she was hearing with her ears. In her mind, she had to see what was going on. Her desire to look back cost her her life. It cost her husband his wife. And it cost her daughters the blessing of having their mom in their lives. The cost of looking back is way more than it seems in the moment of the pressure to backward focus.

DEVILISH DEVICES: UNFORGIVENESS

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Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.

2 Cor. 2:11

Your adversary wants to be at an advantage over you. Surprised? Right? I’m sure you’re not surprised that he wants the advantage over you, but you may not be aware of how he will get it. This verse is part of a letter wherein Paul is telling the church to forgive and love “if any have caused grief.” Paul tells them to prove or confirm their love for the one(s) who did them wrong.

You see, when someone fails another and causes them grief, in particular a repentant person, there’s a tendency to feel unloved or unwanted. Paul recommended that the church at Corinth confirm their love for the one who wronged them. I know it seems it should be the other way around, but it’s not. It is the responsibility of the offended person to show love to the offender. This is to be done for one reason, you do not want to give the devil the advantage over you or your brother for that matter.

Many people think the chief device the devil uses is people doing things against you, and I admit that is indeed harmful. But have you considered that this may not be the enemy’s endgame? What the enemy is truly after is your unwillingness to forgive. The devil does not have an advantage over you by someone mistreating you, but he does gain the advantage over you through your very own unforgiveness and lack of love toward that person.

Here is why. God is love. When you are walking in love, you are walking in God’s realm and this is a position of power wherein you reign, regardless of what others may do with the intent to harm you. However, Satan doesn’t have the advantage at that point. He either is advantaged or disadvantaged based on your response. So every temptation the devil brings your way is really about moving you out of love and/or forgiveness in order to defeat you.

It’s kind of like checkers. Your opponent makes a move to make you think he wants you to make a certain move. But actually, he’s wanting you to make a move that will let him jump 3 of your game pieces. They may have sacrificed one checker to gain the advantage in the game. So when the enemy entices someone to harm you, his goal was to get you to retaliate or hold bitterness.

HOW DO YOU GAIN THE ADVANTAGE?

In order to keep your position of advantage, you must forgive the person who wronged you, just as God in Christ has forgiven us. Does this mean that you go to lunch with a person who abused you? No, it does not. But it does mean that you are not harboring hatred toward the person in your heart.

MEDITATION AND DESIRE

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1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

Psalms 1:1-2

Your meditation should be consistent with your desire. Psalm 1 speaks of delighting in the law of the Lord and meditating in the law consistently…day and night. In this context, the subject is the law that should be delighted in and meditated upon.

This, I believe, should be a rule of thumb. Do not meditate on anything that you do not delight in. When it comes to relationships, find that thing about them that you delight in and meditate on that. When it comes to work, find that thing about it that you delight in and meditate on that. When it comes to events of your life, find that thing about the event that you love, and meditate on it. Let’s take a look at another Scripture.

MEDITATE ON THESE THINGS

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Philippians 4:8

The thing that we need to learn is that not everything deserves our continuous thought. We tend to think that if something is true, then it merits our perpetual attention. However, a thing being true does not mean that we should think about it for an extended amount of time. The verse above suggests that the things we think about or meditate on should fit all the criteria above. How much depression would we remove from our lives if we only followed the advice given in this verse? So the next time you feel overwhelmed, take note of the kinds of things you’re thinking about and make adjustments as needed.

FREEDOM VS CONTROL

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And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Gen. 2:16-17

I’ve heard people say that you’re not free to do what you want, you are free to do what you must. I don’t agree with that statement. Freedom is only freedom if you can do the opposite of what is desired by another. That would be like telling a slave that you are free to pick cotton, chop wood and bale hay, but not what you want to do. That is not freedom, not because of the type of work it is, but because it removes the volition of the slave. Control is when you restrict someone from being able to disobey you. When God told the man to freely eat from all the trees except the one in the midst of the garden, He did not take away man’s ability to disobey Him. God told him what would happen when he eats from the tree He told him not to eat from. In this incident, you see what freedom looks like. You are not free unless you have the ability to disobey a stated order.

Look at the language of the 10 commandments. God never said, You can’t do…He stated…you shall not or you shall.

Ultimately, life is about managing freedom. The tool by which freedom must be managed is truth. This is because without truth there is no freedom. You see, the purpose of a lie is to remove or limit a person’s choice to the one selected for him. The purpose of a lie is to take truth off the table so that it won’t be an option in the mind of the person lied to. God will recommend or tell you which option to choose, but He will not make the choice for you. Neither will He take the opposite choice off the table so that you can only select the one He promotes. Remember, He said I set before you life and death, therefore choose life. He didn’t say I set before you life, but the devil set before you death. He claimed responsibility for setting them both before us.

Therefore, truth must be what your heart is set on more than anything else. Without truth, your freedom is at stake. And the opposite of freedom is slavery or control. Truth delivers you from all other masters. Jesus called Himself, the way, the truth and the life. What does this have to do with this lesson? You don’t experience life solely through desire. There is a way or path to all things. On that path called Jesus, you will find truth which takes you into life. Those 3 elements are all intertwined into one thing and found in the person of Jesus the Christ.

What about bad outcomes? God is not interested in fixing outcomes directly. He is interested in man obeying Him by choosing life and as a consequence man’s outcomes will naturally change. The problem is not death, it’s man’s choice of death that is concerning. It’s no different than the woman who aborts a baby once she already had unprotected sex with a man that she did not want to have a child with. The problem was not the pregnancy. The problem was the decision she made to have sex with the man who she did not want to father her child. You see man is trying to control the consequences of his actions instead of his actions that led to those consequences.

So what is freedom then? You are free when you accept responsibility for the outcomes in your life because you have taken responsibility for your own behaviors that led to them. Freedom means that noone is responsible for your life, but you, because you are not under the control of any other. Freedom ultimately means that you do things because you want to do them, not because you must. So you see, you are free to do what you want to do. Just please understand that there are results that come with those decisions as well.

THE CLEANSING EFFECT OF HOPE

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(Originally written on June 16, 2015)

And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

1 John 3:3 (KJV)

In context, this verse is talking about believers purifying themselves (ourselves) because of their (our) hope in Christ. There is a truth that I would like to extract from this verse. This morning the Spirit of God spoke to me and he used this verse to show me the following lesson.

You can identify what your expectations are by what you are willing to let go of to have them. If you are not willing to let go of the things that are preventing you from having what you want, then you have not truly stepped into hope. What is holding believers back from receiving is not the devil. What’s holding believers back is their unwillingness to let go of the things that hinder their progress. 

They want God to give them something while they hold on to what is holding them back. Let’s use weight loss for example. A person will say they want to lose weight, but they hold on to poor ways of eating and they hold on to the couch. Real Bible hope would do the following instead. Decide what you want to look and feel like. See yourself like the finished you. Add the ingredients into your life that make for fitness, such as exercise. And eliminate the things that caused you to get up to the weight you find yourself at now.  

There has to be a laying aside of the weight that so easily besets you. The more stuff you carry, the more energy you have to spend to get to your destination. This causes you to spend more time en route because of the load you’re carrying.

We have been duped into believing we need something else to manifest our desires, but in truth, we need to let some things go.

Bruce Lee became the greatest fighter ever because of what he was willing to walk away from. He separated himself from the things that didn’t contribute to being a great fighter. But he was able to separate himself from the things that held him back because of his expectation. His hope purged him of every trace of coward and he became the best at what he did because of it.

What are you willing to walk away from in order to walk into what you truly want to have in life? You cannot walk into your destiny until you let go of the things that hold you where you are right now.